


No Truths to Hear

by Arimanes (Kara_Sevda)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Light Bondage, Power Play, drama on the Finalizer yo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:04:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_Sevda/pseuds/Arimanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux acquaints himself with Ren's new apprentice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On the night of her arrival, Hux catches only a glimpse of the girl, her smaller, black-cloaked form trailing a few steps behind the ends of Ren’s wraith-like mantle. In the days that follow, no further appearance of her to the General’s initial surprise. He expected Ren to parade his new recruit around a little considering what a fuss had been made over the scavenger in the past, but no, no sign of her at all in the coldly sleek halls of the _Finalizer_. He remembers Ren’s spiraling incompetence from the business with that damn droid, succeeded by months of an obsessive side-quest to “procure this promising asset for the First Order.” That was how Ren had phrased it during their holo chamber sessions with Snoke. But there had been an edge of personal motivation to Ren’s entreaties before the Supreme Leader. A result of shame and humiliation from the defeat on Starkiller Base, Hux assumed at first, a need to restore personal reputation.

Then, one evening as Hux passes through a corridor lined with private quarters for higher-ups in the ship’s command structure, he sees Ren exit a room without that ridiculous helmet and thus notices the mussed hair, the darting gaze that gives away the air of secrecy. Ah. Perhaps, another sort of personal motivation then.

 

* * *

 

He’s curious, he can admit that to himself at least. Hux has met a handful of the other Knights of Ren before. A hulking, mostly silent lot of crude weapon-bearing mystics that he has no interest in encountering again. He’s not sure if the girl can be simply categorized as another member of their group however, and it’s unacceptable that he, the commander of the _Finalizer_ , should be so in the dark of the status of this particular passenger.

Fairly certain that he just saw Ren stalking in the opposite direction along the ship bridge five minutes ago, Hux heads for the hallway, the room that he now knows houses the scavenger girl. Pressing the keypad outside her quarters, he waits, just a few brief moments before the door slides open.

She’s half-ensconced in the fresher as he enters, her back partially visible and her hands busy with tying up her wet hair.

“Haven’t we practiced our forms enough today?” she asks, and the inflection of her question fades away as she turns to see who’s actually standing in her doorway.

Her eyes meet his, flicker up to his command cap, and then return to staring steadily. Without apprehension. “General.” It’s not the respectful tone that crew members employ when addressing him, but it isn’t openly scornful either. “I must say, I’m surprised that it’s you paying me a visit.”

A quick survey of the room, not that there’s much to take in. Basic furnishings. A neatly made bed. A desk cluttered with the components of a taken-apart blaster pistol. A door whose wall location discloses that her living space is adjoined to Ren’s.

“Rey, isn’t it?” At her nod, Hux continues, “I’m not here for formal reasons. I would like to however request your company for some tea in the mess hall. It might be a good chance for you to see more of this ship, considering how Ren’s kept you rather secluded.”

She glances at that door before her mouth arranges into a not quite genuine smile. “Alright, lead the way.”

Apart from two officers having a late lunch, they’re the only ones in the mess-cabin. Even so, Hux steers her towards a table in a quiet niche where the conversation will be for his ears only. A droid serves them a tray of stim tea and an indulgent dish of crumblebuns. Over the rim of her cup, the girl studies him unabashedly. He feels as acutely observed as if they were playing a game of sabacc.

She breaks the silence first. “Kylo --” (Ah, she calls him by that then.) “He told me that you don’t think very highly of Force users so I’m not sure what kind of conversation you’re expecting to have with me.”

“It would be a rather dull conversation, wouldn’t it, if we constrained ourselves to only certain topics beforehand?”

A small smile teasing at the corners of her tea-wetted lips. “You sounded like him for a moment there. He’s always going on and on about how one should be unshackled from constraints.”

A glance at her cup, and Hux refills it. “Enough about him. Refreshing company is rare on this ship, and I don’t intend to let it go to waste. Tell me about you. About why you’re here. Aside from him.”

Her eyes brighten with the issuing of his challenge, and she begins weaving her tale.

 

 

By the time their tea grows cold, Hux has decided that she’s at least a better liar than Ren.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“You don’t believe in our mission,” Hux states the second time they break bread over tea.  
  
“You mean the First Order’s mission?”  
  
“Well of course, we are all here to carry out the collective goals of the Order.”  
  
“Do the Knights of Ren always act in accordance with the army’s agenda?”  
  
He looks sharply at Rey before grudgingly conceding, “The Supreme Leader’s apprentices have not always been...transparent about their aims.”  
  
“Nor has the Leader himself.”  
  
Her words border on treason, and Hux stiffens at hearing them, despite a voice which scrapes insidious agreement at the back of his skull.  
  
“Last time, you asked that I explain my presence here without inserting Kylo Ren into the conversation, but he is a large part of why I came. And Snoke is an even larger part. For us, mastery of the Force will always trump the movement of troops or the construction of technological weapons.”  
  
Hux can’t help but grumble at this. “So Ren’s truly indoctrinated you then? Now, you sound exactly like the other Knights. I’m astonished he hasn’t insisted that you wear a helmet just like his.” As he says it, his eyes skim over her face, the gentle planes of her brow and temples, the cheeks hollowed by a lifetime of hunger outlined by still softly, girlishly rounded jaws. He supposes that the answer is as clear-cut as those fine, high cheekbones. Ren himself might prefer to avoid looking in the mirror these days or directly into the eyes of the other Knights, but why be deprived of looking at her? Of observing every new experience trigger reactions in the strangely appealing expressiveness of her face.  
  
“He can be a lenient teacher in some aspects,” Rey replies. “I trust his judgement on when I’ll require such a mask.”  
  
“Trust? Yet, I’m going to guess you haven’t told him of meeting me?”  
  
He doesn’t mean it as a threat, and she doesn’t register it as one. “I came here to learn, and a crucial aspect of learning to use the Force is practice. Shielding some of my thoughts -- and feelings and encounters, it’s a natural way to practice. Do I alarm you, General?”  
  
He pushes the plate holding the last bit of crumblebun towards her and leans back in his seat. “No. Some people may have grown up just thinking of the Force as an element in myths, but my father, he oversaw the Imperial Academy on Arkanis. It included a program for Force-sensitive individuals of high potential, like yourself. So no, I’m not surprised at hearing what you can do. I’d be delighted even, if you come to soon surpass Ren.”  
  
A glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “Are you in search of a more pleasant partner to work with?”  
  
“In dire need of one who won’t sabotage half of our missions with his impulses and destructiveness.” Hux contemplates whether he should say more, whether he can push a different reaction out of her. She’s not like the female politicians or aides he’s met during intermissions of peace with the New Republic, nor is she anywhere near the sort of practiced flirt draped along the dimmed booths of entertainment establishments. Willing to admit that she’s still learning to shutter herself. He wonders if Ren savors this about her as well. “And you’d be a much more pleasant sight than his hooded snout.”  
  
Her tea is still piping hot, as evidenced by the thin tendrils of steam emanating from it, but there’s a tinge of ruddy flush on her cheeks now, and they both pretend he’s not watching the last bit of pastry travel from plate to her mouth, the parting of her lips and the dart of tongue.

 

* * *

 

He’s striding through the command centre when his ears pick up on the half-flabbergasted, half-scandalized comment from one of the technicians manning the internal surveillance station.

“Looks like Kylo Ren has some warm blood in him after all,” the operator chuckles to his friend, and Hux’s scrutiny strays to the video screen they’re monitoring.  
  
He’s observed Ren bringing the girl into that training room on repeated occasions. To demonstrate blaster bolt deflections with a forward push of gloved wrist and to watch her practice the same gesture in turn. He’s watched twitches of trepidation disrupt her visage, the hardening of her features with determination, the flare of pain erupting into a gritted-teeth grimace that refused to widen into a cry when a bolt singed her side once. Watched when Ren took her into his arms as easily as if she were a child and carried her presumably off to the infirmary ward.  
  
This time, Ren’s standing right behind her, his front pressed to her back and his outstretched arm lined up with hers, as if to show her the exact angle with which to thrust the palm outward. It could pass for just another training session, except then, Rey curves her cheek somewhat and catches Ren’s mouth with her own. Whatever lesson is supposed to be going on is clearly forgotten after that because Ren is pinning her to the closest wall, the broad slab of his back swallowing up her shoulders, her bare neck. He frees her grasp just long enough so that her hands wrap around him, curling into his hair.  
  
“I believe Matthison now, about the repair requests,” the security technician remarks with a bark of laughter. “They haven’t had to restore a single control panel since she came onboard. Just uh -- training equipment.”  
  
“For a wipedown?” quips the officer at his side.  
  
Their laughter dies down instantly as they notice the General marching into their station alcove.  
  
“Turn it off,” Hux orders, and they scramble to comply. “If I catch any of you gaping at such filth on duty again, I’ll have you ejected off this ship before you can so much as mumble an excuse.”

 

* * *

 

The third time they’re walking towards the mess hall for tea, a pin tumbles out of her fixed-up hair, and Hux reaches, thoughtlessly, to tuck a loosened twist behind Rey’s ear, the pad of his index finger grazing the thin skin along and behind the shell.  
  
It brings him close enough to discern the blooms of rust-red color on her neck, peeking above the edges of her collar.  
  
She doesn’t mention Ren at all. Instead, she fires small talk at him, questions about his family, his days at the academy. No tact on her part, but Hux isn’t completely irritated, considering the company she’s kept in her life. In-between, Rey slips in queries about which star systems the Order is currently negotiating shipbuilding contracts with, which planets are quartering more troops. Over steepled fingers, Hux shows her his own form of deflection. Asks her about the graveyard of Imperial ships on Jakku, about which one impressed her more -- the carcass of the _Inflictor_ or the _Ravager_ , about whether she’s ever drunk Knockback Nectar and if so, was it truly that throat-numbingly awful? Of course, he stages his own less subtle interrogation too, probing her knowledge of Resistance bases and which commanders were weathered veterans and which were barely into their first pair of officer boots.  
  
“You mean, like you?” Rey asks, her voice pitched with innocence.  
  
He steals the last biscuit directly from her hand for that.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where the hell is this impulsive fic going? I too have no clue, but thank you for the lovely commentary.


	3. Chapter 3

 

What started out as a conversational joke begins to crystallize in Hux’s mind, gaining shape and possibility as it transforms from hazy, vindictive idea to a conviction that demands further examination and serious deliberation.

To have the girl as an eventual partner, standing alongside him on the command deck and supplanting Ren. Well, why not? Hadn’t Snoke expressed repeated disappointment in Kylo Ren, even while voicing lofty appreciation of the scavenger girl’s burgeoning capabilities? Moreover, Hux considers, if Rey truly harbored remnant, lasting loyalties to the Resistance, wouldn’t Snoke have identified her as a traitor by now?

Via the surveillance cameras installed around the chamber where Snoke communicates through holo transmissions, Hux has observed Ren and the girl leave the room in one piece on the occasions they were summoned. Rey, trembling and pale in the aftermath but physically unscathed as far as he could see. Only twice had she needed the buttress of Ren’s frame to steady herself while walking out.

Hux takes care to save these thoughts and machinations for the privacy of his own quarters.

Nevertheless, the tilt of Ren’s masked snout sends a chill through him whenever it’s directed in his direction now.

 

* * *

 

He sent the invitation to her a week ago. Affirmed that she could come by whenever she liked. Still, it catches him by surprise to see her lithe form emerging on the bridge, her torso neatly buttoned into the charcoal and burgundy-pocketed jacket he sent along with the invite and her legs in the flared trousers that match the uniform of several ranking officers. She looks good, he assesses before nodding in acknowledgement. Clean and polished. Nothing like the rag-wrapped scavenger captured on Takodana, and the uniform was undeniably better than whatever antiquated costume Ren had dumped on her.

In spite of not being able to see Ren’s expression, Hux can practically feel the dangerous aura of the man’s rising temper.

“What are you doing here?” the Knight demands icily of his seemingly unperturbed apprentice.

“General Hux authorized my attendance. He suggested that acquiring some familiarity with the bridge’s command and control stations could prove useful in the future, and I thought it was a worthy proposal so I came.”

That damned tilt of Ren’s helmet again. Hux resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s not about to play a child’s staring game with headgear that doesn’t even incorporate fully-functioning eyeholes.

To Ren’s left, an admiral and a lieutenant quietly excuse themselves from the standoff occurring around the astronavigation computers. Breaking early for lunch, Hux hears distantly. He pays them no mind and raises an unimpressed brow at how Ren is twisting a control panel’s knob hard enough to emit a crackle of sputtering, protesting wire.

“It really isn’t a big deal,” Rey cuts in, her voice crisp and all-business. She tilts her head right back at Ren. Hux doesn’t possess a wealth of knowledge on how master-and-apprentice relationships work, but he would bet that the majority do not function like this.

“Learning the ropes here will be useful,” she says to Ren, rephrasing with a softer timbre. Hux wonders if this careful modulation of voice is something she picked up from the politicians-turned-Resistance leaders. From people like Ren’s rumored birth mother.

Rey’s voice dips even lower. “I’ll prove it to you later.” Hux reconsiders. Perhaps, he’s witnessing the apprentice attempt one of those mind tricks on her master.

Whatever silent communication is going on between them, it does indeed fizzle out Ren’s displeasure, and Rey passes the next several hours with them in the ship’s central hub of activity as if she belongs there.

 

* * *

 

Before, their interactions had been isolated to the mess hall, to half hours of free time they could fit in here and there.

Now, her presence begins to seep elsewhere into his life. A holobook on the history of the Galactic Civil War that Hux lends to her on the bridge one day and that Rey returns with a wry, “Did Kylo Ren secretly narrate this? I’ll be glad to never hear another word of Darth Vader’s exploits ever again.”

A week after that, she is present in the briefing room when Squad Leader Riddell gives his presentation on the new training simulation designed for desert terrains. Across the table, Hux can see Rey opening and closing her mouth several times during Riddell’s speech. She doesn’t interrupt though, and he notices that she lingers afterwards to converse with one of the project engineers.

It is late into the evening when Hux receives her message on his comm. “Want to see where Riddell was wrong?” is all she says.

With a frown, he finds himself pulling on his discarded jacket and heading towards her room. She’s at her desk as he enters, her hands spread to magnify portions of the holoprojection hovering above her computer screens.

“I don’t think Riddell’s ever set foot on a real desert planet in his life,” she says by way of greeting.

The awkwardness of being in her bedroom so late fades away as he follows her gesturing hands that point out every feature of the simulation training program that she finds laughably misguided and poorly designed.

“I didn’t realize the Dark Side apprenticeship program included a crash course on programming simulations,” Hux dryly remarks, running a hand through his hair as he looks over her work.

“It doesn’t. I learned about this before I met Kylo.”

“On Jakku?” he asks incredulously, bending slightly to better examine the atmospheric correction algorithm she plugged in. Did they even have schools on that backwater planet? 

“I taught myself, okay?” Rey snaps back, tone prickly and defensive now. “If you think I’m wrong about this, just tell me. The esteemed Empire you all regard so highly? Utterly wasteful with their ships by the end of the war. If you looked hard enough through the wreck of the _Inflictor_ , you could still find whole functioning systems to salvage and repair.”

The reminder of how different her poor excuse of an upbringing had been relative to his elicits a streak of recollections. He closes his eyes. Eight, twelve, sixteen again. Steeling himself in preparation for the whistle of that one tutor’s cane to end with its landing on his knuckles. A coterie of older boys rubbing the heels of their mud-smeared boots on his exam results. That unpredictable pause of a moment when he wouldn’t dare to breathe as his father’s voice shifted from good-humored to relentlessly caustic.

He straightens, bringing himself back to this moment, this simulation he’ll instruct Riddell to overhaul in the morning.

“No, doesn’t look like your calculations are wrong. I’ll submit your corrections to the project team tomorrow. Unless, of course, you want to take part in the redesign yourself?”

She hesitates, tossing a look over her shoulder at that wall. That door. “Maybe. If my training allows for it.”

“Right. Where is Ren anyway?”

“Off-ship. Independent assignment from Snoke.” 

Hux lets out a sigh and adds another task to his mental list for tomorrow. He’ll need to have that tracker on Ren re-processed to figure out if it’s still working or if Ren’s disabled it. Groaning, he rubs at his temples, willing away the niggling irritation that always arises when the Knights’ objectives, _when Snoke’s objectives_ whispers that voice again, don’t perfectly align with the military’s.  

“You should go to bed,” Rey says, shutting off the projection and watching him with a wrinkle in her brow. 

“Yes, well, thank you for showing me that.”

She nods before moving to draw back the covers on her bed, and he feels his feet rooted there, compelling him to make this moment of being alone with her last just a bit longer. He shakes his head. What ridiculous, frivolous thoughts. Whims that belonged to an adolescent boy. Absolutely no room for such notions on this ship, in this life.

“Good night,” he bids her and heads back alone.

 

* * *

 

Ren’s next off-ship mission requires her. Apparently. They are to take the Knight’s Upsilon-class shuttle to the planet where Snoke wants them to hunt down some artifact dating back from the dawn of the Old Republic. An absurd and distracting quest in Hux’s opinion, but he squashes down the feeling and signs off on the authorization for a small unit of stormtroopers to accompany them. Tries to ignore how increasingly cryptic the Supreme Leader’s communications have become lately.

Only Ren and Rey return, the shuttle cruising so sloppily into the _Finalizer_ ’s landing bay that it grinds into the wings of two TIE fighters.  

Both are wounded and staggering fast towards unconsciousness as they climb out of the shuttle. 

They spend most of the subsequent day in the medical wing. Rey awakens long enough to launch into a shouting match with Ren that only halts with them being wheeled off to separate ends of the ward.

She is hoarse and reluctant to speak when Hux shows up.

“Well, you’re both alive at least.”

A sound that approaches laughter bubbles out of her. “On the surface, we are. Underneath --” She thumps a small fist at her breastbone, crinkling her white medical gown. “Snoke has already hollowed out both of us.”

Her eyes peer past him, through the transparent glass to where the doctors are huddled over discussion of her blood samples.

“All these people of science,” she muses in a dazed voice. “I wonder if they believe in the Force.” Her vision swings back to focus on him, in his full uniform and rigid posture. “And you, General. You acknowledge the Force exists, but have no fondness or care for it. Yet, we’re all here, devoted to carrying out the designs of the Supreme Leader and his cult --”

“The Knights of Ren do not take precedence over the military --” 

“Oh _please_ stop. Stop deluding yourself. You know it. You’ve always known it. Snoke’s objectives when it comes to anything relating to the Force will always take precedence. Everything else is just a sideshow.” 

Near-traitorous words from an adversarial mouth. He spins on his heel and goes to the table where the doctor left a tray with water and sedatives. “The infection from your leg wound induced a fever, and you’re not well. You should take these pills. I’ll come back when you’re more stable.” 

With a slow, shuddery exhale, she reclines back on the narrow cot of the medbay bed, closing her eyes and effectively dismissing him from her attention. “Go then. I don’t need anyone to feed me medicine.” 

The last thing he hears from her as he departs the room is faintly spoken. Barely audible at all amidst the humming of the medical machinery.

 

“I just wonder what it will take for you to lose faith.”

 

* * *

 

He no longer keeps track of how many times they’ve had tea together, but Hux stops by her door one afternoon, and she sends him away for the first time.

“Not right now,” she says, and Hux wonders if Ren’s back and enshrouded somewhere in the shadows behind her.

He’s about to turn and shoulder back to the bridge when she asks in an almost-whisper, “You have anything stronger than tea on board?”

“Stronger?”

“As in something with alcohol.”

“Yes -- I have a bottle of malt and some other liquor in my quarters.”

“Okay, let’s do that then. Later. Tonight.” She says this quickly, and as if realizing the implication of her words seconds too late, she amends, “I mean, we could meet in the recreational facility. You know that area with the couches where the officers play dejarik?”

He’s never permitted himself to participate in such pastimes with his inferiors, but he does in fact know what area to which she’s referring and nods in response.

“Alright, I’ll see you there then.” With that, her door slides firmly shut.

 

* * *

 

A succession of long sips into his second glass, and Hux feels finally relaxed enough to appreciate her choosing of this spot. The viewport here supplies a panorama almost as generously expansive as the one on the bridge. Head falling back against the cushioned couch, he squints at how the stars of the Outer Rim seem to winking at them. They’re well on their way to deliver both Ren and her to Snoke, ostensibly for the final trials of their training. 

“I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the sun on Jakku.” Rey’s still on her first glass, swirling the liquor around and staring into it as if all the secrets of the universe swim just beneath the fluid surface. 

A snort of derision from him. “Why?”

“I miss feeling the sun on my skin.” She directs her own little snide jab at him. “Not something you’d understand, I guess.”

He feels oddly tolerant of her brassy attitude tonight and lets the comment slide. It occurs to him that his opportunities to speak with her and share drink are numbered. He can’t even be sure that she’ll survive the training with Snoke.

As if she could sense where his thoughts are leading, Rey breathes out, “All I can think about is death recently. It’s not like I even have family that would miss me, and the...acquaintances I left behind, they’d be glad to hear that my traitor self died.” A bitter, mirthless smile on her lips. “Kylo on the other hand...even now, his family would still mourn him. His mother undeniably would. She wanted so much for him to come home.”

Rey winces, as if physically stung by the memory, and the ensuing words flow like a confession. “I promised once. That I’d bring him home.” 

Of all the topics that could come up in conversation, Hux would’ve least expected Ren’s mother to arise as a subject. He sits up and pulls the drink gently away from Rey’s loose grip. To see her so unraveled after weeks of her crafted, perfected persona is worrying.

Yet, he cannot deny that he’s not wholly opposed to perceiving the tinge in her cheeks, her skin so bloomed with roses compared to his, though he supposes that the ruddiness will appear on him too if he keeps drinking. His fingers itch to find out how her hair would look if unbound from the tight, glossy buns she’s been wearing as of late, and Hux doesn’t remember the last time he reached for someone, but he reaches for her, slanting his mouth over hers and tasting the last traces of malt there. And it’s like the kiss turns her to stone because she doesn’t soften into his arms like she did for Ren, doesn’t entangle her fingers into his hair like she did on the cam screen. Here’s another thing he can curse and hate Ren for.

He shouldn’t feel disappointed. Why were they both sitting around, as gloomy as if her death were already preordained? She’d survived everything life had barraged her with thus far, and she would continue to survive. She would come back, he feels certain of it. She would come back from Snoke’s training, more worthy than ever to lead the Order by his side. 

Withdrawing, Hux looks her in the eye, green irises meeting hazel, and tells her with full severity, “You think that no one would care if you were gone, but I --” His hand follows the smooth slope of her hair, the curve of the back of her neck, and everywhere, the skin is warm to his touch, the warmest thing on this cold, barren ship. “I think you could make anyone want you. And mourn for the loss of you.” 

“Ever the orator,” she says softly.

And he has to kiss her again for that.

 

* * *

 

The last time he rings at her door for tea, it’s Ren looming behind the portal as it glides open. Dark curls dusting bare shoulders. No shirt and pants dragged low on his hips. Even from the threshold where he stands, Hux can smell the musk of the dimmed room.

“Oh, General,” Ren remarks, one arm lazily lifting a glass of water to his mouth. “Would you like to come in? I’ll get you something to drink. Water? Or would you prefer it to be _tea_?”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Hux tilts the jut of his chin upward, a haughty presentation he’s directed towards Ren in the past and a last stand to preserve dignity. “Ren, I wouldn’t trust you to prepare anything other than poison for my palate so no, carry on with being your usual primitive self and wasting time on personal interests. Some of us have work to do.”

The strange, rough and rasping, sound of Ren’s laughter holds Hux back from fully pivoting and walking off. The Knight sounds like a madman.

“There you go again. Attempting to chastise me. You _hypocrite_. Would you deny that we share a personal interest in who sleeps in this room?”

Hux doesn’t respond, doesn’t quite look at Ren either.

“Only one way to find out,” Ren says. A mocking, singsong offer. “I can’t promise I won’t throw you out, but I’m not going to stop you from coming in.”

In the silence that ensues, Hux finds his boots turning, stepping over the threshold as if motored not by his own command but by a foreign energy. Or perhaps, just the baser urges he’s muzzled within himself too long. Precise rationale escapes him, even as he tries to reason to himself -- as the officer overseeing this ship, the activities of two high-priority individuals are naturally a source of concern.

He would refer to the smell that suffuses the room as a stench, pungent and heavy as it is and not at all alleviated by the spray of violet flowers on the desk. The inhalation of the mixed aromas coaxes a curl of feral want in his stomach though, a warmth kindled only higher by the sight on the bed. All of the lighting panels are turned off, but the muted lamp by the headboard casts a honeyed glow across the surface. Habituated to military life and its metallic textures, Hux would admit that he has barely any appreciation for the aesthetic, but the golden-washed, supine form on the bed merits absorption more than any painting he’s ever laid eyes on. The slope of Rey’s bare back, a smooth bank of skin. A landscape he can trace from the recess of her waist to her lush bottom to the backs of her thighs, knees, calves. The valleys and dunes of the desert, half-emergent from the rucked up dark sheets, and the smears, milky and viscous, on her thighs assert to how much Ren’s already slaked his thirst on her. Oh. He supposes that's the only answer he'll get as to why Ren hasn’t been spotted around the ship for two days.

Resting above the cleft of her lower cheeks are her curled hands, bound together by what Hux can only presume is one of Ren’s thinner belts. His brows arch even higher as Rey turns onto her side, the dark spill of her hair falling back to reveal the blindfold secured around her head.

“Is this punishment for partaking in company other than your own?” she demands of Ren, her face angled as if she can see exactly the spot where he stands, despite her cloaked eyes. Her voice strained but surprisingly without spite or true rancor.

“I think you’d know if I were trying to convey displeasure,” Ren answers, circling the bed like a sand-panther appraising its game. His infernal, frustrating self seems to reach some decision because he retreats to the area of the desk and slouches into the chair. “An exercise in trust. In trusting each other to give up control and not slitting the other’s neck in the interim. Isn’t that what you wanted? You had your turn with me, harsh as it was. I’ll make sure whatever’s inflicted on you is much more...enjoyable.”

She gives a dry laugh at that. From the corner of his peripheral vision, Hux glances at Ren’s hunched posture on the chair, and notices for the first time the red tracks running from the top of his shoulders, angry diagonal swipes across his posterior deltoids and his upper back, grooved deep enough to have drawn some blood to the surface.

“I think you’re always asking more of me than I of you,” Rey says, as primly as if they were having another disagreement on the bridge, in full sight of the crew.

Ren’s visage darkens, his mouth thinning to a somber, grim line. “You’ve asked the world from me. Didn’t you say we need to trust each other absolutely? For what lies ahead? Do you think I’d let him hurt you? I’d sooner --”

“Break your vows?” she says, voice high and breathless.

“Isn’t that the point to which you’re determined to push me?”

A long pause, a string of silence, taut with tension between all of them but hanging ultimately upon her. The cryptic exchange, this fucked-up game, between master and apprentice means something, Hux is sure of it, but the air of lust and want has burrowed itself into his every pore by now, and he tries to focus his stare at the flowers, at the empty walls, at anything other than the two people driving him mad and making him wonder if he should just go back to his own room and take care of his needs there.

As if magnetized, his gaze always draws back to her though, and he sees the slight indent of her throat muscles as she takes a deep breath.

“I trust you,” she says to Ren. “I do.”

She turns fully over on the bed, her breasts and the line of her abdomen vulnerably visible now.

“Leave a mark of harm on her,” Ren says. “And you can be sure your hide will pay more than twice-fold for it.”

 

* * *

 

Usually, the more difficult a task, the more Hux relishes seeing it through to completion. He’s never approached one of such nature though, and initially, it feels impossible to concentrate on worshipping a woman while her lover glowers at you from the shadows like he’s contemplating the various, creative ways to dismember you.

He’s not even sure how much contact is permitted, and thus, Hux sheds only the greatcoat as he lowers his body to parallel, then hover over, and finally brush against the slant of hers on the bed. Where to put his hands? Cheek, throat, shoulders, lower. Everywhere, he thinks, he wants to touch her everywhere, but he starts with his mouth skimming the juncture where her neck and clavicle meet. He stirs no reaction from her at first, none at all aside from the stiff clench of her jaw. The same face she wears when going over tactical strategies on the bridge. Crippling doubt suspends his body as he wonders whether this is all just Ren’s perverse way of making him into a fool and flaunting superiority in yet another skillset.

Pulling back, he hears a sound escape her as the front of his uniform skates against her bare body. Her lips seal shut again, the crack in her veneer erased. Rey. Unpossessed by either of them, serene as the eye of a storm of conflicting desires. A sneaking suspicion creeps along his spine -- that this was her goal all along. Saying yes to tea and appearing on the bridge and working alongside him on a half-dozen projects. To have the two men running the _Finalizer_ consumed with the idea, the illusion, of controlling her.

No victory in sight does not turn this into an unworthy endeavor, he stubbornly decides, and he returns to mantling her form with his own. He knows Ren’s style, and while he can’t certify that the younger man’s unpolished, abrasive, and selfish behavior carries over to whatever he does in the bedroom, Hux resolves that he can at least make every effort in demonstrating how he works differently. He is willing to work with others, he can be amenable if his partners _try_ as well, and he told her once already, but his hands and mouth tell her again without voicing a single word that he would welcome her as a more satisfying partner.

Keeping true to the boundaries, he is careful. Generous with the lave of his tongue, no scrape of teeth, in leaving circles of wet on the mounds of her breasts and the puckered nipples cresting her flesh. Dragging himself down her body, he thinks of how Ren’s referred to him as a sycophant before the Supreme Leader (Ren being ironic and delusionally blinded as usual). He thinks of the insult even as his tongue writes slick praises between Rey’s trembling thighs. He's been lauded by crowds of thousands for oratory skills, but this, the increasing sap sluicing from Rey's licked-swollen folds and clinging to his nose and chin, tastes more of reward than any applause.

She’s peaking, her hips surging underneath the heated suck of Hux’s mouth, when Ren’s weight interrupts the balance on the bed, dropping heavily to push the General aside. Ren mounts her just like that, tearing the blindfold off so that her startled, widened eyes flit to his face first, and then to the General, still within an arm’s reach.

Hux would leave, should leave, but that infinitesimal locking of her eyes to his anchors him to the bed. Even as she closes her eyes and shudders and shakes under the force of Ren’s plundering hips, he feels compelled to watch.

Control. Control. Which one of them really grasps the reins of control?

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t see her in person for days after that. Nor Ren for that matter. Both of them absent from the bridge, the hallways of the upper habitation levels, the docking bay, and the mess-cabin though neither of them had regularly taken their meals with the rest of the ship’s personnel anyway.

He sees them only on the surveillance screens. How they monopolize use of a particular training room, without consideration for others who reserved it beforehand.

Ordering one of the monitoring security technicians aside, Hux sits down in front of the screens and watches, for a solid half hour, as Rey unleashes the full extent of her saber skills against Ren. She looks like she’s trying to kill him. Perhaps, she is.

Three beams of light, two violet and one red, cutting loops through the air and shredding the chamber’s quadranium steel plating with violent momentum. He watches Rey raise her hand, the same way Ren showed her once, and throw her master into a wall hard enough that his cracked mask falls off.

Hux wonders if any of them should feel triumphant. All that collects in him though is mounting dread. He’s already conveyed some of his concerns to the Supreme Leader. After all, what could he conceal?

The command remains unchanged. _Bring them both to me._

 

* * *

 

Insomnia drives him to leave his room in search of drink. He’s already consumed his cache, and he knows the officers’ area of the recreational facility comprises a cabinet stocked with more.

To Hux’s genuine surprise, he finds her there. Sees the back of her head, her hair loose upon her shoulders. He hesitates and with a sigh, redirects his feet to walk around to the front of the couch, taking in the sight of her folded, shrouded self. Legs and feet tucked on the cushions where he once drunkenly pressed his mouth to hers. One look at her ashen countenance, and he knows that she’s mulling over death and dying again, not reminiscing about any kiss.

Her eyes follow his movements warily, and thus, his first overture is as innocuous a question he can conceive in a flash of recollection.

“Where did you get the flowers?”

Rey blinks at him, an alternation of confusion and remarkably girlish embarrassment crossing her features. “From Kylo. He brought them back from one of his missions.”

A snort bubbles out of him at the mental picture her words provoke, and there’s a small quirk at the corner of her mouth as well. Her tone is both sheepish and annoyed as she says, “According to my subsequent Holonet research, archidia fragrance can produce some euphoric effects when inhaled. It’s even rumored that it has aphrodisiac qualities.”

His turn to flush with embarrassment. “Son of a bantha. Why haven’t you murdered him in his sleep yet?”

“We do in fact have two beds and a wall between us,” she replies archly. Her mouth twists, and she says a little more softly, “I would’ve tossed them all into the garbage, but there was a sprig of arallute in the bunch as well. They’re nearly extinct, you know. Native as they were to Alderaan.”

Her expression hardens. She will never forget who she’s speaking to when she looks at him, and the space between is fraught with guarded words again.

Clearing his throat with a cough, Hux swerves his attention to the starry vista outside the viewport, the knowledge of how close their trajectory is to the Supreme Leader’s sanctum weighing down on both of them with its own ominous gravity.

“ _When_ you come back from your training,” he says, as lightly as he is able. “We can pretend like that night never happened.”

Rey looks at him, then beyond him. Her gaze steady and sure now. “How appropriate. I’m always pretending these days.”

 

* * *

 

From one of the decks of the docking facility, Hux observes the two figures, cowled in black cloaks like the night they first came onto the ship as master and apprentice. Only the two of them are permitted to board a shuttle to Snoke, and Hux isn’t surprised that it’s Rey who climbs into the cockpit to pilot the craft.

Tomorrow, he ponders, he might have a new leader to answer to.

While he hasn’t lacked for confidence in his own intelligence and capabilities, he has seen and felt enough of the Force during his lifetime and career that he wonders if any mortal could rule over beings like these.

 

* * *

 

What happens exactly, he learns only later. In the cell of his prison. They are stingy with elucidating him on any updates relating to recent galactic news.

The truth as he comes to know it: Snoke expired on Kylo Ren’s blade, dead by Ren’s hand.

And Kylo Ren cut down by hers.

On the noon before his trial for war crimes is to begin, Rey manifests as one of his few visitors.

The Resistance uniform, its insignia upon her breast, it all looks wrong on her in his estimation, but he’s been proved wrong about several things in the past year. Strapped to her belt, he notes, are the hilts of two sabers.

“They tell me Ren’s still alive,” are the first words he can muster to say to her. “I’m surprised. Aren’t apprentices supposed to kill their masters to fully inherit the mantle of Dark Lord?”

“There isn’t another Dark Lord,” she replies calmly, setting a tray down where he can see it. Still-steaming tea in a foamed cup, crumblebun on a napkin, and lying at an angle askew to the edibles, a holobook panel. “For now.”

“Ren was tempted of course,” she continues, placing each item she brought into the receptacle that slides through the transparisteel partition to be delivered to him. “Before and after Snoke fell at his feet, he was tempted. I sensed it, and I couldn’t take the risk. Didn’t I tell you I promised to bring him back to his mother? It was just easier to do so with him unconscious.”

He produces a hollow laugh, scratches the beard that rims his pale cheeks now. “So the Dark Side is vanquished in Snoke and...contained in Ren. For now, as you said. But what about in yourself?”

Her scrutiny cast inward, she studies her palms. “We’ll see,” she muses faintly before looking up at him again. “I assimilated quite a lot in terms of method and approach from all three of you. Unavoidable, I suppose, after so much time in your company.”

Unbuckling one of the saber hilts -- Ren’s as designated by the crossguard vents -- at her waist, she rotates the cylindrical shaft in her hand. “From Kylo Ren, honing control of the Force over mind, body, and the external.”

“From Snoke,” she pronounces as Hux cringes. “How to encourage friction, competition, and divergence of priorities between the two commanders of the _Finalizer_.”

Her gaze falls on the crystalline panel she brought to him. A history on the Galactic Civil War. A newer edition than the one he had given to her. “I forget exactly how the literature phrased it,” Rey tells him. “But from you, I suppose I learned how winning a war can hinge upon how much of yourself you’re willing to give up.”

 

 

She leaves him like that, defeated, behind a transparent glass.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's it, that's it. Here ends my first attempt at writing porn logic, and now I'm going to go wash the fingerprints off my hands.


End file.
